Measuring the ‘COR effect’
As the Government of Ontario places even greater emphasis on the importance of the Certificate of Recognition (COR) program for employers, a new study published by the Institute for Work & Health shows (IWH) shows that COR-certified companies are indeed safer.
Last month, the Ontario government released details of its Supporting Ontario’s Safer Employers program. The initiative, which is the first of its kind in the country, will reward employers who successfully implement occupational health and safety management systems in their workplaces.
Up to $140 million in the form of Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) premiums will be made available over three years for those companies that meet any of the standards described by the office of the Chief Prevention Officer. One of those is the COR 2020 standard, which will be updated in Ontario later this year with new elements.
Effects untested
COR is still comparatively new in Ontario. It has been in place for seven years and about 400 companies in the construction sector have earned the certification standard.
The program has, however, been in effect for much longer in Canada’s western provinces—as long as almost 25 years in Alberta. IWH, which is a national independent and non-profit organization dedicated to workplace injury and disability-prevention research, recently looked into the question of whether those employers with COR programs in place were actually safer than those without certification.
Until now, the issue of COR’s effectiveness has not been comprehensively studied.
IWH study draws conclusions
Dr. Chris McLeod, a co-director at the University of British Columbia’s Partnership for Work, Health and Safety led a series of studies into this question using workers’ compensation data gathered from employers in British Columbia and Alberta between 2001 and 2016.
The key findings from McLeod’s report show that, “participation in a COR program was linked with a 12 to 14 percent greater reduction in lost-time injury rates. In both provinces, the link between certification and greater injury rates reduction was stronger in more recent years.”
“Generally, across time, across sectors, particularly in more recent years, COR-certified firms lowered their lost-time injury rates by larger percentages than similar firms that were not certified,” said McLeod.
McLeod’s research cut across a number of sectors in both provinces, including construction, forestry, manufacturing and transportation. It showed not only that there were differences in injury rates between those firms that were COR certified and those that were not, but also that those with better scores on their COR audits showed fewer injuries than those with lower scores.
When he and his team dove deeper into firm scored provided by the British Columbia Construction Safety Association, they were able to draw connections between companies’ audit scores and their injury rates.
“Results showed a clear and consistent difference in injury rates between firms that achieved the minimum score of 80 percent required to be certified and firms that scored between 96 to 100 per cent,” said the report. “Moreover, most of the difference could be attributed to how firms scored on six of the audit’s 14 elements.”
Indeed, McLeod’s report showed that the differences between the best-performing COR-certified firm and others came down to performance on the following elements:
- Workplace hazard assessment and control
- Training and communication
- Inspections
- Investigations and reporting
- Emergency preparedness
- Records and statistics
Time will tell whether the same findings hold true in Ontario, but the IWH research could serve as a barometer for those businesses wishing to pursue COR certification in an effort to take advantage of the province’s rebate program.